Like Ashes My Contrition
by michellemabelle
Summary: EC, Raoul friendly.  Christine has quite possibly gone mad after the events at the opera house.  Dangerous machinations are at work that could prove deadly and there is only one person capable of saving her.
1. Chapter 1

**A lot of ALW w/a little Leroux thrown in. I own nothing except for the voices inside my head. :)**

_He'll always be there singing songs in my head…_

The doctor is back again. That squat, horrid, little man who likes to poke and prod behind my eyes. He wants to see into my head. But it's not seeing. It's hearing. They think I'm overwrought. They think I'm mad. I keep telling them, it's not seeing. They won't find anything inside my head. It's my ears, my ears they've got to look into!

I see him, that doctor, Monsieur Lévesque, talking to Raoul. Raoul is shaking his head, looking up at my window, his hand clutching his cane and twisting the head of it 'round and 'round. I'm hidden behind the curtain so he doesn't see me.

Thirteen months and twelve days since I first arrived here and still they have not fixed me. It is because they are poking around in my head. They are trying to figure out why I sing the Dies Irae in my sleep. They are trying to understand why I recite verses from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam instead of prayer. They are trying to learn the cause of my nightmares, visions of men hanging from iron trees, my body devoured by scorpions, my soul washed away in flood.

But never once have they listened.

Not to me. Not to him.

They are afraid, yet they do not know Fear. They have not looked Fear in his face, they have not tasted Fear's lips, they have not stared into Fear's burning eyes. They are afraid all the same. Afraid He is real. Afraid He will take their mind prisoner has He has taken mine.

Cowards, the lot of them. Messieurs Firmin and André, Carlotta, Piangi, Buquet. Even my husband. Abandoning me to the asylum when I would not agree to a London holiday, would not agree to children, would not agree to physical union, so long as Fear stalked our lives.

They are coming closer now. I don't know how long my rumination has lasted, long enough for them to walk inside from the garden, to stand at my cell and gawk in at me through the window. He'll touch me. My skin is crawling at the thought.

But I'm surprised. Raoul enters first, without the doctor. His touch is often a comfort. It calms me. It clears me. It quiets the singing.

"Darling, Christine, how are you today?"

"Hold my hand."

He places one hand under and the other over my left hand. I am free. I sigh, grateful, then rest my head on his shoulder.

"I am much the same as always."

"I thought as much. The doctor is worried you aren't making any progress Lottie. I confess that I've come to the same conclusion."

I want to clench his hands tightly in my own, beg him to take me home with him, please, God, don't let him leave me here! I am alone with my thoughts and that is dangerous. They don't seem to understand this, no matter how often I tell them. I refrain from any action, though my heart hammers against my ribs painfully.

"I think you should come home."

Home. Can he mean it?

"Truly? Raoul, you've no idea how much it would mean to me. I would give anything to come home. To try to start our life together." I feel a cloud pass over my face and I look behind me out the window. The sun is hidden from view and I shudder at the rain clouds oppressing it.

"Anything? Are you ready to begin our life as it should have been, before this mess?"

I look back to my lap. I cannot guarantee anything. The moment he lets go of my hand I might lose all reason; I have no reason to believe I won't.

"Raoul, I can try. That is all I can promise. I want to… You don't know how badly I want to put it all behind me."

He pats my hand. Thunder rolls behind us.

"That is all I can ask for Lotte. If not… Well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. The doctor does think it best you have someone to watch over you though, so we'll be bringing a nurse along. I'm sure it will be temporary though." He looks me in the eye for the first time since he arrived. "Yes, I'm sure of it."

He pats my hand and then stands up, my hands falling from his grasp and into my lap.

I struggle against the music.

I stand up and follow him out of the door, leaving the cell behind me without a backward glance.

The words come into my head, unbidden. I push them away.

He signs some papers, introduces me to someone, I curtsy.

I touch a hand to my forehead, feigning a headache.

It's the nurse that he's introduced me to. She helps me out the door and he helps me into the waiting carriage.

_"Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?"_

I press my hands to my ears but immediately lower them. Raoul hasn't noticed. Another roll of thunder.

_"Quem patronum rogaturus,"_

The countryside is a wet blur and it makes me dizzy. The nurse and Raoul are talking. They don't see me.

_"Cum vix iustus sit secures?"_

I decide now, I won't mention it. No matter what I will not mention it. Everything will be all right. Lightning streaks and I smile at Raoul, praying that it is not as brittle as the rest of me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to AlteraPars87 for reviewing! Also, I apologize for taking so long to get the second chapter out but real life stuff came up. I'm going to try to update at least once a week in the future but no promises :P**

_Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before…_

I glance at my pocket watch. I suppose that the prisoners will riot if I do not show my face on stage soon. The last time I was late a man died. A smile tugs at my lips and I wonder at it, because the thought gives me no pleasure. It is just one more proof that whether or not my hands hold my lasso, I am Death.

The front of the tent ripples. The flap is pushed aside and the head of a small boy peers in at me. Sava.

"Monsieur, the men are anxious. There is a special visitor from the Czar here. They are worried you will be taken from them."

I set my book down and stand, shooing Sava away with the wave of my hand. If the Czar has sent someone then I'm sure he does intend to poach me from the prisoners, however I am not inclined to care. Siberia seemed a good, poetic sort of justice, but when the world is my prison, one place or another within it is just the same.

I grab hold of my cane and stand up, walking toward the entrance to my private tent, the shouts and yells of the prisoners finally registering with my ears. I do not want to perform tonight. This anniversary is one I wish to spend in solitude.

In the back of the audience I can sense a stillness. It is dark and I cannot see well enough from this distance to discern physical features, but I can see that a single person sits with a bubble of several feet around every side of her, and that everyone nearby appears to be pained, looking everywhere but where she sits, and neither able to laugh nor applaud with the others.

I am flabbergasted. There is not a woman for miles around this camp. Yet, there she sits, dressed in furs and wearing jewels that glitter even at a distance. Sava had told me that we had a special guest but hadn't he told me it was a man? Or had I only assumed that?

I retreat to the tent at the end of my performance, wanting nothing more than to distance myself from the vision at the back of the crowd. She's disappeared after only thirty minutes and the bubble that had surrounded her was quickly filled. It was as though she had never been there. Perhaps she had not. I am not often prone to delusions or hallucinations but neither am I entirely without experience with that kind of madness.

Sava pops his head in again, this time carrying something tight in his fist. He looks awed.

"It's from her."

"Who might you be referring to?" I already know but I want her presence confirmed.

"The woman from the carriage. The driver yelled at me and she stuck her hand out the window. When the window opened it smelled like roses."

"What did she give you?"

Sava holds out the woman's card, printed on expensive cream colored paper and embossed with gold lettering. He had crumpled it in his sweaty palm, so I smooth it out and hold it beneath the light of my gas lamp. It reads:

Natasha Alexandrovna Romanov

House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov

I curse. It is the Czar's sister.

I hastily scribble a note of response. I invite her in with my warmest regards. I hand the note to Sava and send him back, all the while unable to take my eyes off of the card.

It is only a few minutes later when I see a man dressed in black enter, size me up, then hold his hand out to someone outside the tent. A black glove accepts his hand and the woman from the audience enters my tent. Now that she is near I can examine her more fully. Auburn hair lays in curls around her forehead and is drawn into a bun at the back. Her driver helps her to take off her furs and I see that she is wearing an off the shoulder dress of blue-green velvet with gold trim and a gold ribbon around the empire waist. Diamonds and pearls adorn her neck and wrist. Her face is small and pale, though not at all sickly. Bright blue eyes flit around the room and finally, rest on me.

I start, realizing that I have been staring. I offer her a seat on the chaise.

"Mademoiselle, I regret that I had not been earlier informed of your presence, or I should have made my accommodations more presentable."

She waves her gloved hand and sits slightly forward, crossing her legs at the ankles.

"Six months ago I heard a tale. My friends told me that there was a man performing for the prisoners in a small camp in Siberia. I was astonished. I was not aware that the prisoners were allowed any such entertainment."

"I suppose I didn't ask permission."

She laughs, and a fan is produced and opened with the practiced flick of a wrist. Blue-green feathers that match her dress hide everything but her eyes.

"I'm glad to amuse you. Since you left the show early I worry I was not as entertaining as you would have liked."

The fan flicks shut again. Her face is serious.

"Oh, no, monsieur. Quite the opposite. I was very impressed by your entertainment. The ventriloquism was especially amusing." Her eyes cast downward and she smooths an imaginary fold in her dress. "It reminded me of something I had read. About two years ago, there was some… unpleasantness… in Paris. Apparently, a masked man, madly in love with a young opera star, was responsible for the blackmail of the managers of the Opera Garnier, the deaths of several men, and the breaking of the great chandelier. He even held the young opera star prisoner beneath the cellars of the Opera."

She looks up again. I pray my face is stone and that the stone does not crack.

"I did so love that chandelier. The new one is not so grand, don't you agree?"

"I wouldn't know," I cough, "I have never seen it."

"Ah. So you are not from Paris then? You speak French so well."

"I am not from Paris. I am from Rouen."

"Hmm. It is interesting, that you wear a mask. Though, my friends tell me that this man's mask was white and plain, and yours is so fantastical."

She stands and begins to pace the room. I pour a glass of water and offer it to her. She shakes her head. I hope the interview will be over soon, I am feeling ill.

"The French though, I think they are too silly. This kind of fear over an ugly man, especially one reported to be so talented...tsk tsk. Russia would not treat such a man so cruelly."

"Really?" I can't help the disbelief that infects my tone. She turns on her heel and eyes me, lingering on my mask. I don't know what she's playing at. Does she know? She must, this can't be some sick coincidence. Not tonight.

"Really. We are far more practical. Perhaps no one would love such a man, but he would not be feared. Scars are understood here. Russia is cold, dangerous, and pessimistic. It is optimism that fears."

I let my breath out, then drink from the glass I poured for her. She sits again.

"Now, let me speak to you of the present. I have come on behalf of my brother. He is not an easy man, but he enjoys good entertainment. After hearing about you, I told him, and he said that if you were half as good as you were reported to be, then the prisoners did not deserve you, and he did not deserve any less than to have you at court.

"Therefore, I have come to secure your services. I can offer you a large sum of money and pleasant accommodations. I see no reason you should refuse; it must be lonely here."

I don't want to tell her that I sought out this solitude, that I in fact prefer it. She stands up and I follow her lead. I help her put her furs back on and I stick my head outside to signal for her driver.

I step back inside the tent and I feel two hands on my mask. She is staring right into my eyes. I wonder what she is looking for. I wonder…

"I would like to see you with your mask off, monsieur." She leans in and whispers into my ear. "I want to see if it lives up to the rumors."

She backs away, her hands sliding down the mask as she does. She gives a small curtsy and I bow low, though inside I feel so stiff I wonder how I've managed.

She is gone by the time I raise my head and I am left to observe this anniversary alone. I shut off the gas lamp and blow out the candles. I seal the tent. I sit on my bed and from a chest I pull out the music box.

I drift into sleep as the monkey brings his cymbals together and remember a woman with brown curls, though try as I might to keep them brown, they keep turning to auburn. And then there are only blue eyes behind a feathered fan.


End file.
